My dive into Synth Obscura continues! A recent recommended video on YouTube sent me digging into the world of Chiptune— electronic music made to emulate the soundtracks from old 8/16 bit video games, particularly the Nintendo GameBoy.

As with everything else, there are two approaches to writing Chiptune; one approach is to use your DAW as normal but with limited tracks and emulation plugins or raw wave forms; the other approach is to use what is called a Tracker ... actual software in the style used by the original game composers. Trackers can export either wav files or the actual file type used by the game system. In theory you can then play your music on the actual original game system. (This has been done by some creative people in the DIY/maker community).

There is also a third branch of the Chiptune tree, called LSDJ; they use an actual GameBoy hack to make the unit itself into a tracker for writing, recording, and playing back music.

The fourth branch of Chiptune enthusiasts are non-musicians who hack old video games and use trackers to play back the music only.

And the fifth branch are similar to the fourth except they take the ripped music and then create remixes in the tracker.

I think the appeal of a Chiptune is its minimalist approach— how much can do do with how little? That really appeals to me, so I looked online for a tracker. I settled on DefleMask after watching some tutorials (plus it works for Mac).

At first it was utterly confusing, but after an hour or so I was able to start writing music on it. I chose a very simple system to practice on (NES) and started figuring out how to navigate through the vertical, pre-DAW interface. The biggest hurdle is sorting out tempo and time signatures. Since it is Base 16 and the tempo is derived from the clock frequency of the system you are using, it takes a lot of experimentation to get the precise feel and level of swing down.

Starting with the most simple waveform available, a pulse wave, you can set up a number of ‘instruments’. An Instrument is actually just an arpeggiator and amplitude envelope that your draw by hand. You can assign any individual note to any Instrument, which is how you can add expression from short to longer (or sliding) notes.

Each track can then have a certain number of ‘effects’ added like panning, overall volume, and start/stop codas. These are input by hexadecimal code, of course.

TL;DRIf you already have an understanding of synthesis and music production it will not take long to figure out how a tracker works and the results are surprisingly accurate! I definitely recommend trying a chiptarcker out for authentic 8-bit music reproduction.

How did you achieve that thick pwm lead sound? Did you start with a sample that had several pulse waves and then hand-drew the duty cycles so that when it was looped it would simulate pwm? Or is it done in another way? I don't see any real modulation aside from 'vibrato' in my effects choices.

Also, it sounds like some of the leads were done on two tracks and one was detuned slightly? Is that correct?

The Citadel 'scope view shows nicely how a single channel can be used to generate more than one 'simultaneous' (spoiler: not really) tone by quickly alternating between them. Handy but there's a knack in getting it right, I seem to remember!

nathanscribe wrote:Nice work Martin! Didn't know you were behind some of those!

The Citadel 'scope view shows nicely how a single channel can be used to generate more than one 'simultaneous' (spoiler: not really) tone by quickly alternating between them. Handy but there's a knack in getting it right, I seem to remember!

How did you achieve that thick pwm lead sound? Did you start with a sample that had several pulse waves and then hand-drew the duty cycles so that when it was looped it would simulate pwm? Or is it done in another way? I don't see any real modulation aside from 'vibrato' in my effects choices.

Also, it sounds like some of the leads were done on two tracks and one was detuned slightly? Is that correct?

Thanks in advance!!

All done with pulse width modulation, which you can do by updating the pulse width 50 times a second on each of the three SID channels).

nathanscribe wrote:Nice work Martin! Didn't know you were behind some of those!

The Citadel 'scope view shows nicely how a single channel can be used to generate more than one 'simultaneous' (spoiler: not really) tone by quickly alternating between them. Handy but there's a knack in getting it right, I seem to remember!

Thanks nathan!

Just like the PWM, the 'chords' are generated by cyclically changing the frequency every 1/50th of a second around the notes of your desired chord. I did occasionally expand on this by having multiple chords going at different rates in different channels, for that really big 'soundtrack' effect (Armalyte and Citadel both used this approach)

Well, I've been chipping away at Milkytracker (sorry, pun) ... and I have also been listening to a lot of music made by various Chiptune artists. One thing that I find interesting is how many artists are making music using lots of high res samples ... I dunno, to me that seems like you are now making something else (not Chiptune) and making it needlessly difficult for yourself when you could much easier just use a DAW. The same goes with people using trackers to trigger analogue synths. It sounds cool, but is it Chiptune? In my opinion, no. In my estimation, Chiptune is at the complete other end of the scale from analogue synths.

Sensible analysis there Ben, and I largely agree with you. When I used trackers, it was mostly on commission for Amiga game music, and I inevitably had a small allowance of RAM for sample use, so we had to make best use of the space we had (no hi-res samples for me! )

So, yes, hi-res samples with trackers does seem an odd combination to me.

I can however understand some musicians using trackers to trigger hardware synths - some have been brought up with trackers, know their strengths and limitations inside out, and want to stick with those familiarities even when trading up to hardware on the output side.

As for chiptune music, for me that simply means music made using the capabilities of computer soundchips, by whatever means (tracker or otherwise).

Martin Walker wrote:I can however understand some musicians using trackers to trigger hardware synths - some have been brought up with trackers, know their strengths and limitations inside out, and want to stick with those familiarities even when trading up to hardware on the output side.

That makes perfect sense, actually.

As for chiptune music, for me that simply means music made using the capabilities of computer soundchips, by whatever means (tracker or otherwise).

Without wishing to hijack, this all reminds me of my first fateful encounter with computer music, about 1985. I pursaded my then girlfriend, now wife, that what we NEEDED was a Commodore 64, because it would be a great wordprocessor (and incidentally, it had the best sound chip on the market, so I read).

Got the C64 and a copy of a computer magazine, which promised code to turn the C64 into the ultimate synth. So my girlfriend dutifully typed in 7 pages of code, best part of a day. We expectantly ran it, NOTHING... Error.... she checked it, I checked it, a friend on a computer course checked it. We couldn’t see anything wrong, but NOTHING happening. Girlfriend not amused or impressed. It wasn’t that good a typewriter either. All technical credibility gone! And no, she would not type in any more code...

Roll on a few years and I pursuade my now wife that what we NEED is an Atari ST because it would make a great wordprocessor (and incidentally, it is the best computer for music)... and what’s more, you don’t have to type ANYTHING if you don’t want to...

Amazingly, it was a great typewriter, DTP, graphics, CAD, database and, oh yes, MUSIC computer. All loaded from floppy disks (then later a hard drive) with, as I recall, some amazing freeware, especially from very generous volks in Germany.

Phew, technical credibility restored! And she is still my wife and is still putting up with me telling her what I/we NEED.

Although I love the hardware synths of the 80’s, I wouldn’t really want to go back to the computers of the 80’s